


alone in the dark

by Sweven



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Missing Scene, Shock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 23:38:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18974692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweven/pseuds/Sweven
Summary: Miara wakes up alone and surrounded by corpses.





	alone in the dark

When Miara finally  woke up, the first thing she noticed was the stench of death was in the air, though she didn't recognise it. She rolled over, groaning at her tender muscles. Opening her eyes, she saw Neera's usually piercing blue eyes looking back, now dull and lifeless, and Miara lost her breath. 

 

When she finally stopped screaming, panicked and loud, the sound jarring even to her own ears, her throat was hoarse. She had thrown up more times than she could count and she could feel the edges of exhaustion and shock closing in on her.

A tiny voice in her head that sounded like Kaeden told her to sit down, and Miara wanted to do as she said, but moving felt foreign and muddled. Still she tried, slowly, step by step. Panic had left her as brittle as glass, but somehow moving was easier than sitting still.

Tears and dirt caked her face as she lowered herself next to Neera's cold body. Strange, Miara thought, she´d never realised how truly _dead_ dead people looked. Apathy and grief filled her as she stared at the dead woman with her pallid skin. She had been alive. Miara thought about the times she’d played crokin with the woman, how she’d had a spark in her eyes. And now… She didn’t.

It was too much. Unreal. Too real. Miara tore her eyes away from Neera, and with glassy eyes she looked over her dead friends without seeing them. People she had known for years. They’d taken care of her since before she could remember, her and Kaeden wouldn’t have been able to manage without them.

 

 _Kaeden!_ , the realisation of what her sister had done hit her like a lightning bolt. Miara scrambled to her feet, desperate to get to a vantage point. She started crawling through the tunnels, scrabbling at the rocky ground for footing and bruising her hands, but then paused as her thoughts caught up with her body. There might still be troopers nearby. Going out there unprepared would be foolish. Miara turned reluctantly, desperately trying to keep her eyes on the ground instead of the dead, and retrieved a blaster from Neera's body. She recognised it, the familiar weight in her hand. It was the same one she had used the night of the raid and her heart sank even deeper.

 

When Miara got outside, she found Kolvin, bisected and lifeless. The smell of burnt flesh hung in the air, and she dry-heaved into the nearby bushes at the sensation. No-one should die like this, she thought as she wiped her mouth. Especially not Kolvin, he had been far too kind for a fate like this.

She'd fancied the Rodian a little bit. Nothing serious of course, she'd been too wrapped up in the insurgency and besides, he was much too old for her. But Miara had liked to look at him. His big black eyes, his clever fingers, and the wicked smile that would sometimes appear on his lips had made a warmth blossom at the bottom of her belly. 

Now he lay dead on the dry grass, an image of grotesque horror, and Miara would have cried if she had any tears left. 

 

 

As Miara walked away from the hill with nothing but an old blaster in her hand and the name of her sister on her lips, she felt hollow. She didn’t want this, she never wanted this war to come to their doorstep. It was unfair. They'd been farmers, they’d bothered no-one and yet this was how the Empire had chosen to treat them. Miara numbly thought that if she was capable of feeling anything right now, she would hate them. Later she would, she was sure of it.

 

 

Miara stood at the edge of the town. The darkness covering her figure easily enough but she wavered. She didn’t know what to do. She was cold and alone, and even from the outskirts of the town, she could hear the trampling noise of heavy stormtrooper boots. It was everywhere, the town echoed with the Empire. The sound made her tremble more than the cold.

She longed to go home, to their small house, to something _familiar_ , but they’d been looking for Kaeden _again._ They obviously knew who she was and where she lived. Far too risky, she decided reluctantly.

She could try for Selda’s, but it was on the other side of the town. The odds of getting caught were too big.

What Miara really wanted to do was to go to the prison. The stormtroopers were everywhere and she knew that she couldn’t. The girl squatted, suddenly having difficulty breathing again. It was too much. She wasn’t strong enough to help, and Miara felt dizzy.

  

Dawn was on the horizon before Miara moved again. The slightest remnant of self-preservation jolted her back into the present as she saw the first glimmer of the sun. With aching limbs she went back to the hills to hide, careful to not go near the ones where her friends lay lifeless.

Only when the hunger grew too intense did she go back for rations and nearly fainted at the smell. Burying them crossed her mind, but the enormity of the task was too much to bear. Burning them would reveal herself to the Empire and Miara felt sickened that she wasn't willing to risk it. That she was willing to leave her friends to rot without even trying. 

 

She left them again, the guilt weighing heavily on her mind. She walked blindly among the hills and finally, exhausted, she sat down, despair clouding every way forward. There Miara lit a small fire and waited, hoping desperately for a miracle to appear. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tiny lil fic that I started pretty much immediately after finishing AHSOKA (but didn't finish till ~2 years later bc I'm terrible). I understand why the book didn't dwell on this moment, what a horrifying situation for a 14 year old to find herself in!
> 
> Hmu [@sithsoka](https://sithsoka.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat!


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